Journal article
Fine-scale roadkill risk models: understanding the intersection of wildlife and roads
K Chyn, TE Lin, DP Wilkinson, JL Tracy, AM Lawing, LA Fitzgerald
Biodiversity and Conservation | SPRINGER | Published : 2021
Abstract
Robust, spatially explicit approaches accounting for ecological drivers are needed to identify environmental correlates of roadkill and set conservation priorities. We predicted wildlife road mortality across a nationwide road network using species distribution models with environmental covariates. We applied MaxEnt to a citizen science database of > 60,000 roadkill records to predict roadkill probability. Twenty-eight environmental covariates at 50 m spatial resolution were included, such as road type and land cover composition. We focused on ecological guilds and endangered species: common venomous snakes (CVS), semiaquatic and aquatic snakes (SAS), turtles, and the Maki’s keelback snake (..
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Awarded by National Science Foundation
Funding Acknowledgements
Support was provided by the National Science Foundation-East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (#1514955), U.S. Fulbright Student Program-Taiwan, Texas A&M University-Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Friends of Sunset Zoo Conservation Grant, International Herpetological Society research grant, East Texas Herpetological Society-James R. Dixon Grant, and the Taiwan Agricultural Council and Environmental Protection Administration. These sources funded data collection efforts of authors in Taiwan. Analysis, interpretation, and writing were supported by the Australian Government Endeavour Research Fellowship and the Texas A&M University-Office of Graduate and Professional Studies Dissertation Fellowship.